TechTV TechTV’S Windows XP Tips TechTV brings you the flavor and charisma of their network with TechTV's Microsoft® Windows® XP for Home Users—your guide to Windows XP fundamentals. We've boiled down some of the book's best tips right here to help you master Windows XP keyboard shortcuts, download photos, speed up your workflow, watch DivX movies, customize your browser, and more! By Michael Miller and TechTV Secrets of the Windows Masters Constant Use of the Run Box By Morgan Webb, Associate Producer of The Screen Savers Not only do the masters know what Run does, they use it to do everything from opening programs and documents to configur- There are subtle ways to tell the humble Windows user from the ing their systems. With even the youngest among us typing 70 practiced Windows master. For one, the Windows master is words per minute, a couple flicks of the fingers are quicker than familiar with a variety of slick keyboard shortcuts that make the drags and clicks. mouse seem like a comparatively clumsy instrument. Keyboard Some common shortcuts for programs (there may be some slight shortcuts are always quicker than a reach for the mouse, and variations between operating systems and individual computers): the more obscure shortcuts you know, the higher your mastery of the art of Windows. Run Box Shortcut Program winword Microsoft Word F6 iexplore Internet Explorer In the fast-paced world of Internet surfing, there is no time to notepad Notepad drag the mouse all the way up to the address bar when you calc Windows calculator want to leave a page. Hit F6 to toggle your cursor between conf Microsoft NetMeeting aim AOL Instant Messenger your page and your address bar to surf with the pros. msmsgs Microsoft Messenger The Modified Drag winamp Winamp msimn Outlook Express You already know that you can drag an icon with the right excel Microsoft Excel mouse button to get the option to move, copy, or create a wmplayer or wmplayer2 Windows Media Player or Windows shortcut, but there’s an even easier way: Drag the icon with Media Player 6.4 mspaint Microsoft Paint the left mouse button, like you were going to move it, then hold down Alt while you’re dragging to create a shortcut, or Ctrl to make a copy. If you have trouble remembering whether to use Alt or Ctrl, look at your cursor. You get a tiny Add Captions to Your Photos shortcut arrow when you hit Alt, and a little plus sign when It’s fun to add quirky text to your digital photographs. You can you hold down Ctrl. You can also remember that “Ctrl” and do it without any expensive third-party software; everything “copy” start with the same letter. you need is in Windows. You can create some cool titles and captions right in Microsoft Paint. Here’s how to get the most Rename with F2 out of your photo-titling experience. To rename a file or folder, select the icon by clicking once, 1. Open your photo in MS Paint (you can open Paint by then hit F2. You can begin typing immediately. Hit enter when going to the Start menu, selecting Run, then typing you’re finished. mspaint in the box). The Linux Dual Boot 2. Click the A button on the floating toolbar to add text to At some point, most true Windows masters have felt the your photographs. You can change the text color by limitations of their chosen OS and have looked to potentially choosing a color with the left mouse button, and you greener pastures for stability, convenience, and flexibility. can change the background color by choosing a color Whether or not the Penguin sticks, the Windows master is, with the right mouse button. above all, curious. 3. You can make the text background transparent by An Intimate Knowledge of DOS selecting the Transparent option for the text tool on the floating toolbar. Whether learned clumsily from frantically booting a sick computer with a startup disk or progressively before there 4. You can make the illusion of a text shadow by typing ever was a thing called Windows, any Windows master worth the text twice, once in black, and once in the color his or her salt can “cd” with the best of them. you want. TechTV’S Windows XP Tips By Morgan Webb, Associate Producer of The Screen Savers Downloading Photos to XP Customize Your IE Logo Assuming the drivers are installed, when you plug your Windows XP Professional has a great interface for customizing USB digital camera into your Windows XP machine your your browser, allowing you to get crazy with any throbber you computer will recognize your camera and a wizard will want! Your throbber is the logo at the top-right corner of your appear to walk you through downloading your pictures. Internet Explorer browser that rests when you’re reading a page No Plug and Play? No problem. and spins or flaps when a page is loading. You can follow the steps below to add any picture you want—even animations! Here’s what you do if your camera isn’t Plug and Play: Note: Older versions of Internet Explorer would accept strips of 1. Plug in your digital camera. images 220 pixels wide and 22 pixels high, meaning the film strips 2. Open My Computer and scroll to the camera icon. were flipped on their side. If you find any throbbers on the Internet 3. Right-click the icon and choose Properties. with this format, do not try to use them. They will not work with 4. Click the Events tab and choose to save all your current versions of Internet Explorer. pictures to a specific folder. Transform Your Throbber Who needs a Mac when it’s this easy to download your 1. Go to Start, choose Run, and then type gpedit.msc. photos into Windows XP? 2. Go to User Configuration, Windows Settings, Internet Explorer Maintenance, Browser User Interface, and choose Custom Logo from the right-hand pane. Watch DivX Movies on Your Windows Media Player 3. Check the boxes to add customization, and browse to add any files you would like to see as resting images. They must DivX is a compression standard based on MPEG-4 that allows be bitmaps (extension .bmp) and they must conform to the video to be compressed to a fraction of its former size. A lot of proportions indicated. DivX video is traded on the Internet due to its manageable 4. Now for the animation. Your small, animated image should size, but you can’t play it back in a player without the free be a strip of 10 slightly different individual images pasted codec from DivXNetworks (www.divx.com/divx/). together so it appears like a strip of film. Download the free 3MB DivX package. (Don’t download the You have a series of 10 (or more or less) images that are ad-supported DivX Pro. 22x22 pixels, creating a bitmap that is 22 pixels wide by You don’t need all the extras for playback.) This package comes 220 pixels high (if there are 10 images). Go to with a free DivX player, but when you install the package you http://accesscodes.hypermart.net/download.html to can choose to install only the codec you need to play back DivX download a command-line animated bitmap utility called in your Windows Media Player. You don’t have to play DivX in Animated Bitmap Creator (also included in the Internet the DivX player. Once this codec is installed, you can play DivX Explorer Administration Kit). It will take a series of movies in your Windows Media Player. sequentially numbered bitmaps and turn them into a strip appropriate for use as a throbber. Note: This utility does not have a GUI. 5. The large animation bitmap will be 38 pixels wide by 380 (or Restrict User Logon Hours more or less) pixels high. You can keep Little Johnny off the computer when you’re not there to watch with the help of a command line utility called net user. On a standalone computer, there is no way to log a user off when his allotted time is up. However, you can keep someone from logging on until 5 P.M.Monday Save up to 30%! Become a Peachpit through Friday, for example. Here’s how: Club Member today! 1. Log in as an administrator. Enjoy 10% off all books every day at 2. 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